EAT OUT WITH YOUR MEAT OUT: The Green Elephant in Portsmouth, NH.

We here at Fat Guy Food Blog venture into many a culinary world in our travels. I heard recently that humanity may all be the same soul, living out separate lives, experiencing countless things, and since time is not linear, we're all experiencing the world all at once, all one big entity writhing on top of one another for some mysterious, divine end. I'm not sure if I buy that, but I do believe in trying new things. That brings us here to The Green Elephant in Portsmouth, NH.

photo cred: portlandphoenix.me
I'm an idiot blogger and didn't even get a facade shot!

Thai inspired vegetarian food, located in the newly renovated downtown. I was somewhat excited to try this place. A few friends of mine exclaimed how good it was. As life long vegan and vegetarians, I figured their broccoli and wheat grass stained taste buds couldn't tell a grown man what was good and what wasn't! So I hit the bricks with the lady in tow, and ventured out to see what was so good about The Green Elephant.

Looking at the small menu, I was somewhat relieved. A typical Thai (or Thai inspired) place has menus as long as my leg, so going about and finding something was relatively easy.

We settled on an appetizer of Hot & Spicy Soy Sticks in a garlic chili cilantro sauce. Now, imagine my shock when this got sat down onto my table.

oh, 2...how convenient.

These have to be insanely good for them to be able to justify only having 2 correct? Well to answer that question, they were... pretty good. These little soy fake meats on a stick were prepped so well you'd swear they were just sliced off a weird exotic animal. The sauce was spicy, and delivered that sour sweetness you'd come to expect with anything labeled "Hot & Sour". It had a delicious, almost reminiscent of baked chicken skin, outer wonton type, casing.

The bamboo "bone" in the middle tricked my carnivorous brain into thinking I was eating animal flesh, and didn't once make me wish it was anything other than what it was.

The appetizer was good, but I'm still sitting their unfulfilled, and that's what appetizers are supposed to do, whet your appetite, and prime your body for proper ingestion of the main course. So I went with their style of Pad Thai. Something I'm familiar with at other places, of course it'll be good right?
You can also ask for your own level of spiciness, and me, not wanting my whole meal ruined if they went too heavy with the spice, went for a 3 out of 5.

The Pad Thai went as expected. Large portion, ingredients fresh and separate, not a stew of Pad Thai  in peanut sauce like I'm used to. The peanut sauce was not as sweet as I would prefer, and I 100% regret not upping the spice level. The 3 was definitely pretty weak. The Rice noodles were cooked perfectly. Not the best Pad Thai I'd ever had, but not the worst either.

After I finished my bowl of food, there was something definitely missing. I didn't feel insanely full or heavy by the amount of food that was delivered to my table, which I SUPPOSE is a good sign.

still hungry, I eyed the ladies Thai Ginger Noodles

In the end, The Green Elephant wasn't anything phenomenal. The price tag was high, even for food that is served and prepared this fresh. I'm glad a decent vegetarian option is out there for my friends, but I hope they don't alienate themselves from regular folk by having higher prices than a standard Thai place, which do offer similar things, but maybe not as "healthy". I'd go back if they had a cheaper brunch option or something of that sort.

I give the Green Elephant a C-

It's nice, clean, fresh, and decent food. But nothing I tried really stood out as incredible. Slightly pricey if you're looking for a nice dinner, extremely expensive for a quick lunch. More of a place you'd go to impress a date, but not really go because you dig it. I would have bumped them up a full letter grade if they gave you more than 2 Hot and Sour Soy Sticks. That's just ridiculous.  

-Josh

Throughout the meal sitting there, out of the corner of my eye, my inner fat guy just kept stealing glances out of the window, perhaps wishing he was another one of his past life soul tentacles, biting into something infinitely more delicious. 

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